My MacBook Pro (late 2008 model) now sports a 120GB solid state (flash) system drive and a second HD with a capacity of 750GB (in place of the DVD drive) and I have lived with it for over a week now. I love the speed of the SSD and the capacity of the second drive, which contains all of the music and image files I need. I love that the HD spins down when it’s not needed, e.g. when I am surfing the web or checking email… and the laptop becomes utterly silent. I also love extending the life of this laptop.

Oh, and once again SuperDuper! worked flawlessly. After installing the SSD I simply hooked up the portable HD that contains my SuperDuper! backup of the old system and less than an hour later I had my familiar system drive back, including all preferences. I can’t recommend SuperDuper! highly enough. Jon and I swear by it and it has saved our hides more than once. It’s the best $28 you’ll spend on computing.

And here are a few links:

The Mountain on Vimeo
This was filmed between 4th and 11th April 2011. I had the pleasure of visiting El Teide. Spain´s highest mountain @(3718m) is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.

Designs for Life won’t make you a living
I spoke to one young designer who has five items in production with a respected Italian manufacturer – no small achievement. “My royalty cheque last year came to €600,” he said. “Half a month’s rent.”

Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Androids Send Cellphone Location – WSJ.com
Apple Inc.’s iPhones and Google Inc.’s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.

Contains this:
HTC Android phone collected its location every few seconds and transmitted the data to Google at least several times an hour.

and:
Apple, meanwhile, says it “intermittently” collects location data, including GPS coordinates, of many iPhone users and nearby Wi-Fi networks and transmits that data to itself every 12 hours,

I would love to know what Apple means by intermittently. I would also love to know who gets charged for the data that is transmitted… I mean, transmitting location data several times an hour (!!!) has to rack up a certain amount of data and if the user is not on an unlimited data plan s/he would basically fund Google unless Google (and Apple) have deals in place with the carriers to exempt this data from billing.

How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With? – NYTimes.com
We all know that we don’t get enough sleep. But how much sleep do we really need?

Diary (2010) on Vimeo
‘Diary’ is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.
Camera + Directed by Tim Hetherington

Tim Hetherington was tragically killed on 20th April 2011 while covering the conflict in Libya.